‘Promising’ stem cell therapy for hair loss could be available in five years

Researchers at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid may have targeted a potential solution for hair loss.

A recent study analyzed the effect of injecting mice’s skin with stem cells from human fat —  “adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs)” — as a means of treating androgenetic alopecia (AGA), more commonly known as male- or female-pattern hair loss.

The team found that male mice achieved the best hair regrowth after three weeks when they received low-dose ASCs, combined with an energy-boosting molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

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Low-dose and high-dose ASC treatments along with ATP led to no hair regrowth improvement in females, but medium-dose ASC plus ATP led to greater regrowth.

The researchers concluded that hair regrowth was improved in “all experimental groups” where male mice received stem cell solutions supplemented with ATP.

The findings were published in the journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy.

Lead study author Dr. Eduardo López Bran — dermatologist and professor at The Complutense University of Madrid — shared his expectations for the study in an interview with Fox News Digital.

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“We expected good results, but not such a high level of success,” he said. “We’re talking about a very high degree of hair regrowth in both male and female mice.”

With appropriate doses, the researchers achieved “very high percentages” of hair regrowth, noting that 100% of the male mice and up to 90% of the female mice regrew hair.

“These results demonstrate that advanced therapies may represent a new therapeutic approach for many diseases for which no effective treatments are currently available,” Bran went on.

“Achieving such promising results in the preclinical phase with a completely novel approach to androgenetic alopecia — one that avoids chronic treatment and is also safe — is a significant scientific milestone.”

“We’re talking about a very high degree of hair regrowth in both male and female mice.”

The main limitation of the study was the thinness of mouse skin, Bran noted, which “posed a challenge in administering the therapy.”

“This required the development of protocols to minimize experimental variability, and will be a key factor when studies in humans begin,” he said.

These new findings should be “interpreted with caution and scientific rigor,” Bran cautioned.

“Although the results in mice represent significant progress, it is also true that it is essential to wait for clinical benefits in humans to be confirmed.”

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The researcher encouraged those with androgenetic alopecia to continue consulting with their dermatologists and to follow prescribed treatments as research develops.

“It is important to remain hopeful. Research advances are pointing toward possible solutions that, in the future, may offer long-lasting results without the need for continuous treatment to maintain benefits,” Bran added.

“This study is small, and more research is needed on this method as a potential treatment option.”

Looking ahead to human clinical trials, researchers are “actively working” on confirming safety for men and women between 18 and 50 years old with moderate androgenetic alopecia, the researcher noted.

“If everything progresses as expected, the most optimistic timeline points to the treatment becoming available in approximately five years,” he said.

In a separate interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Brendan Camp, M.D., a New York-based dermatologist who was not involved in the study, commented on the potential for this method.

“While not commercially available, this study suggests that injection of stem cells supplemented with ATP into scalp skin could potentially encourage hair regrowth in individuals with androgenetic alopecia,” he reiterated.

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“This study is small, and more research is needed on this method as a potential treatment option for androgenetic alopecia.”

Until then, Camp encourages people to focus on currently available and “well-studied” treatments to address hair loss, and to visit a board-certified dermatologist for evaluation.